The Fire Sermon
by Quillslinger
Summary: A seagreen tale in three parts. Prompted by Letta. Deidara/Naruto.
1. Part I

Title: The Fire Sermon

Pairings: Deidara/Naruto, Naruto/Sakura, Naruto/?

Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi. Fic prompt belongs to Letta, who had no idea what she was in for, not at all.

Warnings: Weirdness, character death, pretentious writing, what happens when Mai lets her mind run away with her, etc.

* * *

**The Fire Sermon**

-x-

_I have heard the mermaids singing each to each_

_I do not think that they will sing to me_

_We have lingered in the chambers of the sea  
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown  
Till human voices wake us, and we drown._

-x-

I.

This sea-green tale tells of a man who, on a downward and inward spiral, has an encounter with the king of crows, in a kingdom by the sea.

-x-

Just over two months ago and the little coastal town would have been brimming with noisy tourists, drawn to the sea for a bit of water and salt-laced maritime air to improve their health, sunburning their complexion sienna. But now swimming season is ended, and the scenic beaches are bleached monochrome under an uneventful grey sky, waves crashing despondently against black rocks like skeletons of wrecks. The town perches precariously against the sea; the rocky beach at the bottom separates land and the vast expanse of grey water. Spirits ride on the combed heads of swaying waves. When you close your eyes at night, you can hear the mermaids sing.

Traveling is a matter of days, two if by land, one if by sea, and the first time Naruto comes on foot, arriving just before silver dusk. Later, he will suppose he might have been unready. As it is, the sweeping symphony of wave and wind provokes from deep within him a spiritual shudder. The unearthly lilt of mermaid song echoes in his skull. This, he knows, is a place beyond life, where the living has no business tarrying. It is not a question of intent. The insular effect of the sea has a way of spilling into the human mind at this proximity. Even the night is full of it.

-x-

Letters still find their way to him. He's holed up in one of those sunbaked colonial lodges, all clean sheets soft fluffy pillows glimmering sea-mosaics on the floor, dead empty at this time of year save for old people and consumptive children, and the letters still find him.

Sakura's brave the journey dressed in coats of stationary pink, smelling of plum blossom, slightly salt-tainted by the time they arrive, made sheepish by sea-corruption. He reads them aloud to himself in his room like he might be comforted by the sound of his own voice reading meaningless words. Her letters are long and considerate, full of starkly irrelevant details of a humdrum life that she thinks makes up for their mutual lack of courage. _I am adjusting beautifully to my new job_, she writes, _and the reconstruction is going swimmingly_. Perky adverbs belie her true feelings, god only knows what she wants. Once in a while – very rarely – she chances the occasional sincere questions about his well-being, the vague purpose and indefinite length of his trip, etc. He doesn't reply, and her tone becomes hurt and accordingly angrier with each unanswered letter. It's not like he's the only one at fault here. She knows perfectly well where he is, and may come to see him anytime she likes. She doesn't. It's not his fault.

At times he wonders what the hell he's doing here. Late at night, lying awake listening to the sea blowing through the curtains and clutching at the empty hole in his guts, or during one of his seaside pilgrimages, covering the waterfront with the weight of memories. Soul-searching is not the object – these days, his head is quieter than he cares to admit. No, it is something more physical, it is the abdominal emptiness, the baby gap marking the spot where the tumor at the heart of his life has been removed. It aches and pulsates with a phantom pain, and it's ridiculous. You'd think he'd be glad to be rid of his lifelong curse. Instead, he's waiting for the scars.

No, it is not even that. It's just – it is only in this way that he understands Sakura, understands a little bit of what she might be going through. He can get perspective because, just as she is trying, he, too, is only doing the best he can. He's always known, with a sort of ingrained, bone-deep confidence that borders on cockiness, that he would be one of those left standing when all is said and done. The curse is lifted. The problem now is coping with being the one left behind.

So he walks beaches. And reads letters.

Others write. Tsunade's are particularly difficult to get through. She's the only one who still has a right to be self-righteous, and makes sure he remembers this every chance she gets. Her adverbs are mostly of the emphatic, verbally acerbic variety. Her anger, even when conveyed via long-distance correspondence, smashes against him like a furious storm, such that he has to fight not to succumb under the weight of his mounting guilt. His friends write as well, but he ignores those letters: they just make his head hurt, trying to wrap his mind around the conspicuous absences, the game of whose-name-should-be-here-but-isn't. Frankly, he wishes people would be more like Kakashi. The man's only written once and he didn't even bother asking after his health, just sent him his official on-leave notice and twenty hundred ruan in cash. It's the kind of gesture that speaks volume. His sensei _would_ be one to get avoidance philosophy.

The days stretch into weeks, pretty soon it'll be months, but it's another day and still he's here, still doesn't know, doesn't have any answer. With his eyes closed and ears pressed against the glass of the window on another sea-filled night, he listens to the mermaids singing.

_There is nothing for you here._

But still he stays, and wears down the floor of his hotel room, reading aloud to himself as his grasp on the situation slips between the names and adverbs of the semantic stream.

"You're pathetic, Uzumaki," he tells himself. "This is how people go crazy. First they start talking to themselves and before you know it, they're going AWOL from their villages and scaring old ladies on the streets in idyllic seaside towns. Get a fucking grip."

He used to be happy, that much he remembers, he used to have dreams, and aspirations. He used to believe in himself, and in his growing strength, and the magical power of getting whatever he wants however steep the odds. Now he walks beaches and reads letters. This is not rock bottom. This is breaking through rock bottom and hitting certifiable hell.

Then again, he also used to vehemently believe that, when it's all said and done, he wouldn't be the _only_ one left standing there.

Things change.

-x-

It's halfway into the fifth week – a dull, sullen day, the wind roaring off the water with a dark fury that resonates with the big sky full of layered clouds, all variations of grey. They are thick and unmoving far up the stratosphere, black and angry in patches casting dim shadows on the beach, thin and wispy-ash grey and scudding quickly past. The sky always seems larger when you are by the sea, as if the reflection of all that grey on the roiling water only magnifies it. It has already rained that morning, pock-marking the sand underfoot. It will rain again, before long.

Naruto shoves his hands into his pockets and turns his gaze away from the angry sea. He has been out walking for hours, squandering most of the morning up and down this same seemingly endless stretch of beach, freezing to the bones. A lethargy has settled over him, a little grey hopelessness like the silvery mist at hangs over the water at the edge of the horizon. The dark melody of the mermaid song creeps softly across his skin, molding goosebumps. Curling his arms about his torso in an effort to preserve body heat, he arrives at the lip of sand that covers the bit of rocky coast down to the water, and carefully observes his newest discovery.

At one end of the beach, the rock wall seems to have been split open by some ancient plutonic force, forming a small cove at the base, sharply angled at the far end. Beyond the reach of the sea even at high tide, a series of rockslides has formed an enormous pile of boulders, a natural "chimney" of sorts. A passage, high enough for a man to pass, burrows deep into the mass of rocks. Through the narrow opening, the fey darkness calls to him, a summons that drowns out the dark song of the sea-girls.

He leaves behind the seething water.

The sandy corridor takes him deep into the heart of the structure, half-lit by sunlight filtering through the gaps between the stone. From this main path, several narrower passages stem off in various directions. No light seems to penetrate these corners of the cave, and darkness reigns in impunity, insidious as the biting cold from the outside air. He makes a mental note to explore each of these detours up close in due time, but does not turn from the main path. A pressing curiosity is egging him on, urging with a single-minded insistency of terrifying potency. Almost unconsciously, his heart has started beating out a heavy rhythm. In his mind a new song has come, the music of the yet-unknown, a secret, seductive melody that buries beneath the faint mermaid song, still shrilling plaintively.

Light ahead.

A gasp passes between his chapped lips.

At the very end of the cave, the corridor opens up into a spacious, high-ceilinged chamber. Half of the floor space is occupied by an enormous stone kiln of rather rudimentary design. An honest to goodness kiln, complete with a deep hearth, a blazing fire, and a tall conduit chute leading up into the ceiling of the chamber and presumably outside, which seems quite superfluous as the fire itself appears to emit no smoke.

And the fire…

What a fire. It seems to feed on nothing at all – neither wood nor coal – growing straight out of the base of the hearth, the self-efficient flame-tongues licking eagerly at their stone confines. The heat it generates is vivacious, lashing at Naruto's cold wind-chafed skin in playful waves. The chamber is filled with a pleasant warmth which curiously enough promptly halts at the threshold, so that no other part of the cave reaps the benefit. The sweeping shadows of flamelight dance hypnotically on the walls. This fire – the Fire – it is a being with its own emotion, a thing apart. The song in his head is amplifying (the mermaid call now no more than an inaudible whisper) until it has gained the august intensity of the Fire itself, and becomes The Song of the Fire. The Fire Sermon. So lovely, so powerful – it is the melody of promise and redemption, a guarantee of security, of absolution, of the future. As if a dark cloud has been lifted from his mind, everything is suddenly illuminated in a moment of blinding, beautiful, terrifying clarity and he sees --

He staggers forward blindly, hands outstretched, reaching desperately for that warm lucence. But before his trembling fingers can grab his last chance at salvation, he is struck a powerful blow on the back of the neck, and goes down in a swirl of dust and darkness.

-x-

"Wake up."

Breath on his skin. He creases open his eyes, tastes a mouthful of grit and sand. He tries to raise his head, and something hard – a heel – slams across his nape, forcing his down again, sending little flowers of pain blossoming on the back of his eyelids.

"Don't move until I tell you."

Out of the corner of his eyes, he can make out, with some difficulty, the situational change he has undergone while unconscious. He is no longer in the stone chamber with the large hearth (and the fire, the warm and glorious fire, was that real or just imagined?). This room is cold and drafty, the walls pigeonholed, so porous that the milky light of the dying day streams in generously, narrow, dusty beams that illuminate simultaneously everything and nothing at all.

Lastly, he remembers he is not alone.

"Fidgety, aren't you?" the disembodied voice remarks. There is a lightness to it, some flighty quality that smacks of air and open planes. In this enclosed space, it rends the stifling dusty silence like an irresponsible gust of wind. It is deceiving. It is _familiar_.

"Alright. You can get up, but if you try anything, I'll blow your brain to shreds. I suggest you don't. I don't want to have cerebral juice and bits splattered all over my works."

Slowly, he pushes himself up on his arms, both confused and a little angry at having been caught off-guard. There is a squish of cloth to his right; he turns in its direction, and a sea of black and red, red and black swirls before his eyes. He looks up, up, and into a single icy blue eye, wide and searching. In the darkness, it seems to glow.

"Long time, no see. _Jinchuuriki_."

He startles, scoots away a little instinctively. The eye crinkles slightly, amused. The face that frames it is a strange one – but only in the sense that it is odd, and not that its features are unknown – and very wrong. Something about the set of the mouth is too broad, the cheeks too pale, the face too blandly androgynous. Naruto takes in the shock of stringy, winter-wheat hair that cascades over one side of the man's face, behind which something hums with electrical menace, a cold, joyless sound, and moves back still further.

"Never thought I'd see you here," the man laughs, and his laughter rustles like silk. "What a letdown. You're the loud jinchuuriki, aren't you? The little leaf. Why, the last time I saw you, there was a war, there were mythical monsters, and men were scheming world domination…"

"And that didn't work out too well for you, did it," he spits, snarling. "_Akatsuki_."

"Now, now," the former Stone shinobi – the one that got away, his mind supplies – placates mockingly. "You know better than to be calling me that. There is no Akatsuki anymore. I just wear the cloak."

"Then what am I supposed to call you?"

A sliver of a smile, sharp enough to bleed on. "Deidara will do."

"That speech impediment thing of yours is very annoying," he remarks.

"Well so is yours, _dattebayo_," says Deidara sarcastically. "Anyhow, jinchuuriki, I do believe you have barged uninvited into my workshop."

"Workshop?"

"Take a look around."

He does. That voice seems to have hypnotic power. He looks, and suddenly feels as though his heart has been pierced by pins of ice. The shadow of the cave shades inexplicably into eyes, tiny, blank eyes full of whites, eyes set in small, narrow, beaky faces of birds. White crows: lean, identical albino creatures that glare at him sinisterly from the heights of makeshift shelves. He has a moment of stupid, irrational fear that the ranks of uniform birds would rupture and attack in a fierce swoop, until the light adjusts and he realizes they are made of clay.

"Yes," Deidara is saying brightly. "In this kingdom by the sea, the last rest stop before the end of the world, you have stumbled upon the last true artist. I am the sovereign of flightless birds -- " the king of crows " -- or at least they seem that way now, don't they?"

"What are you talking about?" More than anything – the darkness, the strange creations, the appearance of _a former enemy_ – it is Deidara's odd behavior that sets off the alarm bells in his head. He remembers his handful of encounters with the Stone shinobi, snatches of recollection in a jumble of much bigger, more consuming events, and recalls only that the man has a penchant for creating explosions (and shouldn't he be afraid of that, of sudden, messy death _at least_?). And it's not that he's ever considered any member of the once fearsome Akatsuki sane in any way – even so, something about the current situation seems wholly, utterly wrong.

"I am talking about you, jinchuuriki. You, who must be the loneliest man in the world, to have been desperate enough to seek out this shithole."

And, yet again, he can't be sure if that non sequitur is plain old ribbing, or a watered-down extension of the earlier crazy talk. Ever optimistic, he opts for the former. "Don't you know better than to be calling me jinchuuriki? Since it was one of you that did the handy work."

"Is that the reason, I wonder," Deidara says thoughtfully, sweeping to the other end of the room. In the gloom, his long frayed cloak and stooping posture really do give him the semblance of some gaunt bird of prey. "You're not used to living for one, not used to listening for the voices in your _own_ head for a change. You miss the company. So you felt you needed to get away."

He opens his mouth, and shuts it quickly. There are parts, percents of him that concede to the unrealized half-truth in those words – it is the parts of him that are terrified, that quake on moonless nights when the mermaids begin to sing. Why does he pretend that those millionth-part percents don't exist, no matter how infinitesimal they may be?

Quite possibly, it is because he does not want to believe that, all along, a certain degree of his existence, a certain indispensable core, is defined by his lifelong curse, the Kyuubi.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto," he says instead. They have, after all, never formally met.

"Charmed."

"You did not kill me," he says, standing up. Deidara makes no move to stop him. In the story, too, the king of crows is ever deceitful. "Why? Last I heard, there is a huge prize on your head."

"Just like the uncouth layman to ask questions that can do him absolutely no good," tuts the blond man disapprovingly. "If you must know, there has always been a huge prize on my head. As I see no hitai-ate on your forehead, I assumed your loyalties were temporarily… elsewhere."

"Just what is that supposed to mean?"

"Please," Deidara says dismissively. "Think about it. This region has a population of under _two hundred_ in the winter. We two are the only shinobi for three counties around. Do you really think the concerns of your ninja countries hold any weight here?"

There, too, is truth in that.

"Now I wish you to leave," the blonde continues blithely. "I have much work to do, and not an infinitude of time. The kiln will not wait."

"The kiln," Naruto repeats to himself. Then something hits him. "The kiln! That chamber with the stone hearth! I didn't just imagine it!"

Deidara stares at him quizzically. "Of course you didn't. Where do you suppose I intend to fire my statues?"

"But that fire back there," he persists. "That could not have been any normal flame."

Something like a dark thought flickers across Deidara's one visible eye (the other, Naruto notes, is no more than a metallic glimmer shrouded in darkness). "You mean the Fire."

It's almost as if he could _hear_ the capitalized word. "Yes."

"Interesting," mumbles Deidara. "The Fire is my creation. It will be the final trial through which my works must go before sublimation. The test of truth, you might say."

"But -- " but he bites his lips and says nothing. His silence is helpless.

"The Fire must burn for forty-nine days." Deidara's gaze has turned dreamy, and he speaks with a sort of trancelike breathlessness. It is an absence of weight that sinks into Naruto's heart like a heavy stone. "On the last day, I will fire the birds, and then… something incredible will happen." Thoughtfully, "I rather think you will make… that is you might…" Suddenly, it fades. Crisply, "But you will not be here to see that. It is almost a shame, but you must leave immediately."

"Wait -- " he startles, stumbling over his tongue.

"No," says Deidara, though it looks more like he's talking to himself. "No, definitely not. You must leave. There is no other way… if only… I could… but no." Unmistakable finality.

"You will make me?" he says defiantly, a last-ditch effort.

"Why not?" counters Deidara, suddenly lucid. "I am the one with two hundred kilos of potentially explosive clay at my disposal. I don't suppose you care to argue."

He doesn't reply, and is quickly hustled out.

At the entrance of the cave, he spins suddenly on his heels and fixes Deidara with an earnest look. "Just out of curiosity, I'd like to know one thing. Is that okay?"

"Fine," says the blond man, sighing in exasperation. "Just the one question."

"How many days has it been?"

Deidara seems taken aback. There is a discernible pause. He waits, almost holding his breath.

The answer, when it finally arrives, is so quietly spoken it is almost inaudible. "Seven."

-x-

"Is it a religious thing?"

He's back again the next day, and this time he finds Deidara sitting just inside the entrance of the cave (the Chimney, he dubs it), looking eastward over the sea and rolling clay at a blurring speed. The horizon is obscured by layers of black cloud swelling ever higher into the enormous sky. The wind is already strong and sniping as the light fades.

"Is this fun for you, being a nosy moron?" the sculptor grouches, mechanical eye clicking menacingly with the motions of his dexterous hands. "Do you not at all comprehend the meaning of 'just one question'? Aren't you afraid I might blow you up?"

"It is a religious thing, right?" Naruto presses on boldly, feigning deafness. He's slept on it, and decided it cannot wait. "Because I've been asking around. Forty-nine days comprise a complete initial mourning cycle in the Buddhist tradition. That's what this is about, isn't it?"

"Disregarding the fact that the only religion I practice is that of true arts," Deidara replies tartly, "I'm not the mourning type. Besides, there has only ever been one man of faith in the Akatsuki, and we both know what happened to _him_."

"You're not an Akatsuki man anymore, remember?"

Deidara nods. Every muscle in his body seems to denote rising agitation. "I just wear the cloak."

There is a short pause, during which the mournful howling of the wind sweeps the desolate beach. Naruto shuffles back and forth on the balls of his feet, eyes glued to his feet as though he'd suddenly found his beach-bum sandals highly engrossing.

"So, about…"

"Oh to hell with it," Deidara exclaims suddenly, rolling his eyes. "Here."

With that, he shoves a sizeable hunk of wet clay into Naruto's hand and goes back to his work without a word. From between his fingers, the rudimentary form of a bird is coming into shape.

Naruto stares open-mouthed at the moist clay in his hand. "What the hell is this? Why?"

"That's a chunk of very expensive Hikadari white clay," answers Deidara matter-of-factly without taking his eye off his own piece of pricey sculpting material. "Why what? Why is it clay? Are we getting existential today? Fine! This is the end of the Earth, I am the last true artist, and you are the loneliest man in the world, or maybe just the most foolhardy, and _we are making clay birds_. Now are you going to let me teach you how, or are you just going to stand there and ask more idiotic questions?"

Hot white sparks of anger flare suddenly, making him dig his fingers roughly into the wad of clay, leaving half-moon tracks in its surface and bits of clay under his nails. "Why did you give me the fucking clay, asshole."

The blond man looks up then, and regards Naruto with his full, ineffable attention. The intensity radiating from that one bright, untrustworthy eye flays him to the bone. The smile, grim and small, does not reach it.

"Oh, I think you know."

And the funny thing is… he actually has to think for a moment about that. He stares sullenly at the ground, pondering, while Deidara looks on in avid expectation, as if the man has not for all the world just issued the most inane of nonsensical requests.

"There's this friend I have. Had. His name was -- it doesn't matter. He was a friend of mine, and he'd… gone away, and I sort of made this promise to this girl that I'd bring him back. Something to that effect."

"And did you?" asks Deidara.

"Yes. Sort of. I got him to agree to it, anyway, and he is – was – a stubborn bastard too. Hard-headed fucker. I think it ran in his family or something, at least from what I can tell of it."

"I think I might have some idea," Deidara says meaningfully. The implied grin is in his eye.

"Right. So like I said, I got him to come back, but he wouldn't do it until he'd done this one thing. And wouldn't you know it -- " and his voice is not breaking, it's not. "Wouldn't you know it, he went and got himself killed along the way. And then there I was, and I had to go tell Sa-- the girl about it, and you just know she was all understanding and supportive and optimistic about it. She might as well have ripped my balls off and put them on display."

He laughs, and the laugh is shaky, as shaky as the world through blurred eyes, as shaky as anything else he might be capable of right now. "But the best part has got to be this: guess who the bastard went and left all his worldly possessions to? I mean, he was on the fucking lam, when the hell did he find the time to pen a will, you know? So anyway, I ended up with it all, his money, his stuff, even a couple cozy little pieces of real estate. What do you suppose he thought I ought to do with them? You know the first time I went to the bank, and saw those bags of cash with the little family seal on 'em? I almost left them sitting there on the fucking counter."

He thinks Deidara might be nodding, but he can't be sure. He's keeping his gaze straight ahead, staring at the roiling black water, and all the while knowing an awful something is creeping back into his heart, a floundering feeling like flightlessness.

The petrels, the porpoises, and he, lost.

"That's how I'm even able to afford living here. I mean, I had some money saved up, but it runs through your fingers when you take an indefinite vacation. I've never been this well-off in my _life_. To top it off, the damn fox is gone. That's all I ever wanted, just the one thing, and now it's here and I'm Scots free. Free as a bird, high as a kite. You'd think – you'd think I'd be happy."

"I don't, actually," Deidara says quietly.

"What?"

"I don't think you're obligated to be happy in any way," intones the blonde. "Nor do I think that really answers anything."

"You're right. That's just my big tragedy, which you aren't even listening to. Fine. The real reason I'm here…"

He spins around to meet Deidara's expectant gaze. "The real reason I'm here is because -- " stops and points a shaky finger at the deceptive darkness beyond the opening of the Chimney.

"Because of that."

"The Fire," supplies Deidara.

"Right," he nods. "And that." Now pointing to the sea.

The wind chooses that moment to hush into a low murmur, leaving the cove wide open to the sickly melody of the mermaids. Without fail, the sound sends his cold skin prickling. "It keeps me up at night. I came here to find… peace of mind? And I'm not getting any. I can't close my eyes for a second without hearing it, like it's already stuck in my skull. But when I'm here…"

"When you're close to the Fire, you can't hear it," continues Deidara. In this moment, his melodious voice sounds soft and remote, as though coming from some deep, distant place where things make sense and questions find answers. "The Fire sings louder and stronger, and its music drowns out everything else."

"What is it like for you?" he asks suddenly, amazed by the raspy, breathless quality his own voice has taken on. "Is it beautiful, is it as glorious… Does it make you want to forget? Does it?"

Instead of answering, the other man favors him with another half-closed smile, so thin and heavily guarded that some part of him urges him to run from it, run now, while the running is still good. He hesitates for a moment, and then, with a sense of newfound resolution, turns a deaf ear to the panicked voice of reason and takes a few steps forward, the piece of mangled clay held out in his outstretched hand.

-x-

It's hours later when he finally drags himself back to the lodge, damp to the skin and sneezing but reeling from a strange grim satisfaction for which he can find no explanation. There are specks of dried silt splattered all over his clothes and face, and his hair reeks of seawater.

"My word, where did all this muck come from?" clucks his landlady, taking in his curmudgeon-like disarray with barely veiled shock. "What on earth have you been getting up to?"

"Nothing," he laughs, swinging his arms in wide, elated arcs. The Fire Sermon is soaring majestically in his head. "Nothing at all. Looks like we're gonna have a bad night, doesn't it?"

The old woman nods sagely, parting a tartan curtain to look out the window at the gathering tempest, a crease beginning to split her brow. "Rain and wind, just the way the petrels like it."

"Excellent!" he shouts, and bounces away to his room, still chuckling to himself. The slightly alarmed voice of the baffled woman follows him to the door, but he pays it no mind, thinking instead of the way Deidara's long white fingers curve and straighten in synchronism, pleading the yielding clay into the sharp, fragile form of crows. Three new letters lie on his desk, unopened. He doesn't spare them a glance. It's the eighth day.

That night, he sleeps for the first time without the shrilly cries of sea-girls in his ears.

-x-

**feedback?**


	2. Part II

Title: The Fire Sermon

Pairings: Deidara/Naruto, Naruto/Sakura, Naruto/?

Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi. Fic prompt belongs to Letta, who had no idea what she was in for, not at all.

Warnings: Weirdness, character death, pretentious writing, what happens when Mai lets her mind run away with her, etc.

* * *

**The Fire Sermon**

-x-

II.

The letters stop coming eventually, and it's easy to forget he ever knew any other place than this. Even the interior of his hotel room is becoming indistinct in his memory, as he always rises and leaves at dawn, and seldom returns before the sun has long set. His artistic prowess is slow and unimpressive, but when he sits at the edge of the Chimney guarding the Fire and participating willingly in Deidara's mysterious project, it makes his life feel a little less like sad bits of broken flotsam tossed to shore after a catastrophic windstorm.

One afternoon, when they're both elbow-deep in wet clay and half-formed statues, Deidara jumps to his feet with a snap and announces that they will be proceeding down to the beach to air out the latest batch of birds. Once upon a time, Naruto thinks, this sort of capriciousness would have incited a string of heated questions from him. Not today. Today, he simply gathers up an armful of still-wet clay birds and follows in Deidara's whimsical wake.

Once they reach the water edge, the birds are laid out on dry sand dunes, away from the marauding waves. Naruto grimaces with some chagrin at the sight of his own clumsy products that keep tumbling over in the sand and have to be straightened up constantly. In contrast, Deidara's birds are sleek and poised, their streamlined bodies smooth and glossy as the broad green leaves of oak trees.

"It's not bad for a beginner," the blond remarks airily. "They even sort of look like birds now."

Naruto ignores him, rolling up his trousers and wading knee-deep into the ice cold waves. The sea is calm and unpretentious today, the green surface flashing like so many silver fins. The wind is up, and if he turns his head thirty degrees to the right, he can see Deidara coming into sharp focus, perched on the rocks with no shoes, surrounded by the bobbing heads of mermaids. The old Akatstuki cloak billows darkly around him, a testament to the strength of the rising wind.

The king of crows, indeed.

"Don't you notice something amiss?" Deidara calls out suddenly.

"What?" he calls back, making for the rocky outcrop.

"Can you hear anything?"

Naruto stops, and listens for a moment. "No." Then he does a double-take. "I don't hear anything. They're not singing today!"

"Not quite," returns Deidara, gesturing at the seaweed-adorned forms around him. Indeed, upon a closer look, the sea-girls' ashen lips are quivering open and shut rapidly, constantly, as if they are striving to outsing each other, but no sound seems to be issuing from the red holes of their mouths. They are mute, as though each is a spy whose vocal cords have been cut out by the enemy before their important messages can be relayed.

"Huh? I don't understand."

"Their songs can't be heard when sung above water," says Deidara serenely, splashing into the water and beginning to wade noiselessly to shore. "That's why they really want to drive you crazy with their singing, so that on the off chance you decide to do yourself in, you might choose drowning and give them a bit of company. Eternity is a long time."

"Nice," Naruto mutters, disgusted. "Did you always know that, or did it just occur to you in a flash of brilliance?"

Deidara, who has already made it onto the sand and is now crouching to inspect the drying birds, turns to level him a withering gaze. "You're the dim one. Everyone knows about mermaids and their fate. You know that saying, men come from earth and women from water?"

"And in death we return," Naruto goes on, shrugging. In his mind, he's still trying to figure the other man out, trying to determine whether he is rational or carried away in one of his peculiar moods. On most days, Deidara seems sensible enough – as sensible as can be said for a man living in a seaside cave that doubles as a ceramic workshop – but in certain fleeting instances (such as at their first meeting) Naruto can glimpse the off-ness, a sense of vague malice that suggests unsoundness of mind.

Consequently, he is on the constant look-out, watching for any trace of said manifestation.

"Well, that's the main idea anyway," Deidara says condescendingly. Sarcasm, Naruto decides, is a sign of normalcy. "In reality, it goes on with: in death, men return to earth to become flesh-eating devils, and women return to water to become mermaids, to be mute for a thousand years."

"Creepy. But what does that have to do with anything?"

A shadow of a smile glides across the blonde's lips, the ghost of that unnerving sliver he's so apt at. "Think about it. It'll come to you."

"Maybe," he says, frowning. "Or maybe: you can just explain it to me."

The smile widens. "Alright then. Imagine, if you will, dead men who must return to the primordial soup of their birth. Dust. Earth, in an essence. We return to earth, but it is from earth that all things find their shapes and forms in the first place, and so in earth, there is also the possibility of _rebirth_."

The sun is dipping dangerously low in the sky. The murky light it casts takes on a pinkish color, like diluted blood, and it pours over the empty beach and colors everything it touches a ruby hue. But the place where its tinting effect stands out as most enchanting – most supernatural – is the sequined water, glimmering in a hazy mirage of cherry light and dappling shadow.

"Watch," Deidara instructs, and dips his hand into the water, scooping a quick handful. The sunlight which seems to be retained there is caught in the curved valley of his palm. This water/light is then poured generously over the clay birds, each in turn. It takes a few moments to get to them all, but when the sculptor is finished, all the birds are gleaming with a new sheen of coating, shining brightly as diamonds in the dark.

Then, with a faint shudder, they simultaneously spread their tiny clay wings and take flight into the magic-charged sky.

"Earth," Deidara whispers, tipping his chin to observe the pale crows circling overhead. The chill wind flutters his wheat-colored hair. "Earth is life. Are you beginning to understand?"

Naruto startles at the implication. Something like fear is coming into his heart: for the first time in a long, long while, he is afraid.

Presently, the sun sinks behind the cloud-lined horizon, and the liquid light fades. The windborne birds drop to the ground like heavy stones with dull, muted thuds – wings snapped, cracked beaks still half-parted in a silent cry.

-x-

There is a slight drizzle, not falling, just hanging in the air. There are waves of sea-mist moving across the sullen water, pouring out of the rocks. There is the eerie song of the sea-girls wailing behind the soupy, moody fog, dancing phantoms, noise and spirits, silence and levitation. There are the two of them, sitting at the edge of the black cave, chilled mist seeping into their clothes.

It is late November. It is the thirty-fifth day.

Deidara is talking, keeping up a constant chatter about the fog or the sea or possibly the imminent destruction of all things. He listens with half a ear, sometimes not at all. These days, he gets the feeling he is becoming like fine pottery pieces that have gone through a misfire – overexposed shells that when seen from afar seem to retain the beautiful shapes and forms of exquisite arts but are in reality full of cracks and fissures, letting the emptiness inside them leak out. These lapses come more and more frequently, with the wistful distraction of a broken dream.

"Look," Deidara says suddenly. "Are those people down on the beach?"

He looks up excitedly, jostled out of his reverie. Neither of them has seen another living soul appear on this part of the beach for weeks.

Black heads bob up out of the mist, just floating, the dark hair hanging in the air. It is a man and a woman, lovers, wearing pale, gauzy clothing that merges with the fog, their heads tossing and laughing. One head vanishes, the other dives, rolls, and back again. He can hear the surf murmuring around their laughter. Giggles and low lovesongs rise out of the fog.

"Who do you suppose they are?"

It is strange to see other people again, after spending such a long time in the company of only one. He is mesmerized by this thought; for a long time, it has felt as if he and Deidara are the only people inhabiting this paled reality on the edge of civilization. Even their habits have grown to form around each other, another kind of isolation.

Deidara quickly grows disinterested, and goes back to thoughtfully kneading another piece of clay. Naruto goes on looking. After awhile, he muses wistfully, "A nice couple, aren't they?"

"Why do you say that?" Deidara asks, in all seriousness.

He stares at the sculptor, puzzled. "Well, they look very nice together. Don't you agree?"

Deidara flicks the couple another appraising glance, and shrugs. "If you say so. I really don't care much for observing the foibles of the human kind, or the whole race in general."

"Really? Not at all?"

"Not in the physical sense. My first partner, now _he_ was all about human physicality. He even collected human bodies, always on the lookout for beautiful and powerful forms to add to his grotesque little collection. His one concern was to preserve these 'perfect' bodies, so that their abilities and physical beauty would live on long after their actual deaths."

These words interest him greatly. Deidara very rarely talks about his former comrades in the Akatsuki. At times, Naruto even forgets that part of his life ever existed. It is easy to give in to the illusion that his whole existence is tied to this desolate scrap of shore, forever kneading clay.

"I never understood his philosophy myself," the sculptor goes on heatedly. "To me, a dead body is just a body, a mass of dead cells and decaying matter. It's like a shell left behind after the substance has been removed. Where is the beauty in _that_? Where is the art?"

Helplessly, a grin breaks over his lips. "And your second?"

"My what?" asks Deidara, confused.

"Partner. You said 'my first', so there must have been a second. What was he like?"

Deidara huffs loudly. "I don't want to talk about it."

His grin collapses into a muffled snigger. Deidara glares horribly.

"And what is your philosophy regarding the human race?" he asks after a moment. "Is it anything like your view on arts?"

Deidara shrugs. "Perhaps. I see human beings as potentials. Each of us is endowed with the ability to become something sublime, like a beautiful piece of art. However, that transcendent moment can only last for a mere instant, as if your entire life, everything you have learned and experienced before that is tapering into this one throbbing point of unbearable intensity, before fading and disappearing into the ether. The trouble is knowing to grasp that moment when it arrives. Otherwise, everything you have lived for until then will be for naught: after reaching a certain point, every unsublimated person begins his slow, tragic, but inevitable decline."

It is moments like these, he thinks, that cement his feeling of being permanently out of time and space. He can find nothing to say.

Deidara looks thoughtful for a moment. " But I've always wondered… Maybe it's possible to speed up that process, coaxing a person, like an unripe fruit, into his maturity. Let us see…"

If there's one thing Naruto knows, it is that his companion, like the stereotypical artist, is a relentless exhibitionist. Though capable at times of long bursts of eloquence, Deidara always prefers the hands-on approach, using actions to illustrate his meaning. The episode with the birds is a minted example. Still, no amount of knowledge can prepare him for what happens next.

Without warning, Deidara gives a swift flick of his left hand. The air around them crackles suddenly with electric chakra, and then two small dark blurs flit past them from inside the cave and plunge into the white mist, heading for the unsuspecting couple on the beach. Naruto barely has time to pinpoint the blurs as two of the finished birds before there is a thud of contact.

A shriek of surprise rings shortly, and then a deafening explosion shatters the quiet beach. The hot pressure lashes across his stunned face like a burning whip. The explosion showers the shore with sand and debris from the destroyed rocks. The lovers have vanished; in their place is only the mist, stained with a pinkish tint and giving off a burnt, coppery smell.

In a burst of delayed action, Naruto jumps to his feet. "What the hell did you do?"

"Disappointing," Deidara mutters to himself. "I suppose it really can't be forced. What a waste."

Enraged, he hauls the other man up by the collar of his shirt and shouts in his face, "You _killed_ them! You just went and blew them up! What the hell did you do that for, you sick fuck?"

Deidara stares at him blankly. One look at that serene face turns Naruto's insides to ice. It is at that moment that he remembers exactly who he is talking to, and that, really, the thing that had always made the Akatsuki so dangerous, so detestable, was not so much their cruelty and predilection for doing harm, but their inability to acknowledge their actions as harmful, as misogynic, as _abnormal_. The thought fills him with anger, and then, interminable sorrow.

But why does he react thusly?

It is not because he holds any illusion to the contrary. No, the reason his recollection fills him with sadness is that it brings home the one thing his mind has tried its hardest to put aside, the awful, inescapable truth that the life he lives is no more than a fragile game of make belief perpetuated by his fervent desire for escapism. In this kingdom by the sea, where everything is light as breeze, he has allowed himself to forget the reality of his wretched existence, forget the immensity of time. But the lull, the tranquility, the _modus vivendi_ of compromise, all that have been shattered along with the bodies of the unfortunate lovers, and with them, his hard-earned peace of mind. He grieves for that reason only.

"You interest me greatly," Deidara is saying, seemingly unconcerned that he is being held up by the shirtfront. Their faces are inches apart; Naruto's breath flutters his bangs. "I had thought that a person like yourself – a powerful shinobi, in your own rights – would understand."

"What is there to understand?" he snarls, but his anger has lost its heat, replaced by despair.

"The urge," Deidara says simply. "The wish to vindicate your superiority."

"Not all shinobi are like you," he says with disgust. "Not all of us have fucking god complexes."

Deidara shakes his head. "Of course you are. You may not realize it, but you are. How can you not? You are different from them. _You_ are the wolf, and they the lambs. You walk among them knowing you are stronger and faster than they will ever be, and that in your hands you hold the powers to put an end to their miserable existences at any moment you choose. How can you not?"

He slackens his grip on the other man, stricken mute with unveiled horror.

"They think we are the tools," Deidara continues, stepping back. "But we know we are the makers. We wield their lives and decide their fates. Of course, some of us are more aware of this than others. That is how men like Uchiha Itachi are created."

"Itachi," Naruto spits, "was a monster."

"No," says Deidara solemnly. "He was a genius. So were all of the Akatsuki. And I am the last of them."

With that, the sculptor picks up his fallen clay and sweeps away into the Chimney.

For a long time, Naruto stands rooted at the entrance, gazing unseeing at the pink mist floating obscenely before him. Presently, a strong sudden gust of wind clears it away. He is aware of being deeply tired, and of an intense desire to see Sakura. He misses her terribly, he realizes, misses the plum blossom smell of her hair, the way her smile plays around her eyes. In that moment, his ears are filled with only one thing: the Song of Home. It's time to go.

-x-

"I have something for you," Deidara says to him on the morning of his departure. Before the initial shock has had time to wear off, a bird figurine is pressed into his hand. It must be one of Deidara's own, small and thin and fragile-looking, but somehow oddly compact.

At his loss for words, the sculptor goes on blithely, "Keep count."

He shakes his head to clear the stupor, and asks, "Count of what?"

"The days, of course."

For some reason, a fit of trembling has started up from the base of his spine, working its way up the length of his body. He shivers violently. "How do you know if I'm even coming back?"

Deidara scoffs. "Please. You're really quite transparent. You said you came here to find something, right?"

"No, I said…"

"And have you found it?"

He says nothing.

"Exactly. Now go, before you miss your boat." With that, Deidara turns from him and retraces his track across the sand towards the tottering shadow of the Chimney. As Naruto turns to leave, he hears the blonde's singsong words carried on the breath of the wind.

"One if by sea. Two if by land. And who by fire. And who by water…"

-x-

On the boat ride back, the horseback sway of the boat rocking in the ocean lulls him to sleep for a moment. He wakes to find that the bottom of the boat has filled with about two and a half inches of sea water, and the clay bird has been reduced to a sludge of indistinguishable mud, and as he sits there, floating in the ocean, old secrets and the sickly mermaid song rise in his mind.

-x-

He tears through the Konoha night, ravenous. His hunger is a tangible energy. Sakura is standing on the stoop of her apartment, fumbling with her keys, when he tackles her from behind.

"Oof -- " but she doesn't miss much, and is already recovering from the lost beat. She adjusts her body gracefully so that her back is pressed to the door, and puts her arms around his neck, and then she's right there, her tingly hair is all up in his face. He buries his face into it, inhaling deep the familiar scent of plum blossom, of _home_, and feeling his heart swell and threaten to burst in his chest. Quite naturally, their mouths find each other, and then they're fumbling and tripping over each other's feet to get through the door without breaking the embrace.

Later, while the beads of sweat are still drying on their skin, he finds himself announcing to the shadowy ceiling, "I have to leave tomorrow."

Sakura, who has rolled away from him only seconds go, flops back onto her elbows and stares at him incredulously. "What do you mean?"

Still with his eyes on the ceiling, he repeats, "I just have to go."

"Why? You just got back. You probably haven't even gone to see Tsunade-sama yet. Do you know that you've exceeded your official leave limit almost twice over? They were talking about sending a Hunter-Nin after you. Do you really want to be labeled a Missing-Nin?"

He turns his head to look at her then, and even in the dim light of her rose-shaded lamp, he can see that her face is mottled with angry red blotches. "I don't know how to explain it to you, and I don't have much time." It's already the fortieth day, his mind supplies. "I probably should have told you that before."

Sakura's pale green eyes widen, all glassy and brittle. Then she drops her head, letting her tangled hair fall all over her face. "But you wanted to fuck me first."

He pushes himself up, and roughly grabs her shoulders, forces her to look at him. "If you really believe that, Sakura, then we can't possibly have remained friends for this long. Come on."

She turns away from him determinedly. "But I just don't understand… is this about Sasuke?"

Now it's his turn to be angry. He grips her shoulders with a little more force than necessary, and unclenches his fingers with a jerk at her little gasp of pain, as though shocked by electricity.

"Oh yes, it's about Sasuke," he says, disgusted. "You know damn well it's about Sasuke. It's always going to be about Sasuke. So are we going to talk about that? Now?"

She says nothing, just pushes her quivering fist into her mouth and closes her eyes. He notes with a sense of vast despair that she looks as tired as he feels. In this land, they have the monopoly on glass houses, and he has the stones. Still, there's no going back.

"Really, Sakura, do you want to be _that_ girl? Because I _really_ don't want to be that guy."

"Well then tell me what I should do!" she shouts suddenly, her voice full of a silenced sob. "Tell me what questions I should be asking, if not that. You've shut me out, Naruto, and I hate it! I hate it that I don't know this new you, and I don't think I even like him that much. I hate it that I don't know what to save you from anymore!"

For a moment, he is at a loss for words. Then he notices the familiar green fire faintly smoldering in her eyes, and the sight gives him heart, just as it always did back when the world was still small. Once upon a time, they weren't the splintered creatures they are now. They weren't so strange and damaged. How did you go from there to here?

His next words are quietly spoken, a tenderly whispered "Did I ever ask you to do that?"

Very slowly, the tension drains from the setting of her shoulders. Very slowly, she inches towards him again, and finally allows him to put his arms around her. Without a doubt, he thinks again, she smells like the best thing he's ever known, a mixture of sex and fragrant water and some strange, secret scent that he has to flounder for a moment before placing as the scent of security. Almost against his will, the poison of hope seeps into his heart, and he glimpses a chance at happiness, at _the future_. It could be like this, for always. It doesn't have to be so tough.

But there is no time now for changing horses in midstream. It's already the fortieth day, the Fire Sermon is beckoning, and there is still earth and life, life and earth waiting ahead.

So he begins to say the only thing that's left to say, "It's about family, Sakura."

"How so?" she asks, the words muffled into the crook of his neck.

"You have a family of your own. So did… so did Sasuke, and yeah, that explains a lot about the way he was, the things that made him tick. Anyway, the point is, you all have families of your own. But for me? You, Sasuke, Iruka-sensei, and maybe Kakashi – you're all I've got."

She burrows a little deeper into the juncture of his neck and shoulder, and makes a small, disbelieving noise that almost shatters his resolve.

"The way I figure it," he continues, " the thing about family is that you've got to stand by them. You might not be able to stand them, and you don't necessarily have to like what they do, but you sure as hell have got to stand by them. And I think it's in this way that I understood Sasuke better, understood the things he did – not that I'm claiming to love him more!" More quietly: "Because I know how much you love him."

Sakura straightens up and looks him squarely in the eye. "I do. I love him, very much. But I love you too."

"So you will stand by me on this?"

"Of course. Even if I end up perjuring before the council. Although I wish you'd tell me what it is you're up to," she muses sadly, and quickly adds a flippant, "Not that you even care."

He laughs slightly. "Maybe some other day, when I understand it a little better myself. You know how dumb I am without you to do all the thinking for me."

"Is that a promise, Uzumaki Naruto?"

He presses his mouth to her dampened forehead, whispers 'yes' into her skin.

"Good enough," she concedes, and without warning, throws her negligible weight against his chest and tumbles them both over back onto the mattress. She leans over him and presses a hard kiss to his lips. Pulling away for air, she says, "Now we've got five hours till tomorrow, and I suggest we make the best of this transnational booty call."

He laughs again, and pulls her back down for another kiss, deciding that in the morning, he will leave before she wakes.

**feedback?**


	3. Part III

Title: The Fire Sermon

Pairings: Deidara/Naruto, Naruto/Sakura, Naruto/?

Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi. Fic prompt belongs to Letta, who had no idea what she was in for, not at all.

Warnings: Weirdness, character death, pretentious writing, what happens when Mai lets her mind run away with her, etc.

* * *

**The Fire Sermon**

-x-

III.

Another gale is lashing across the seaside region the night Naruto returns, and the eastern coastline, directly facing the onslaught of the storm, is struck by its full fury, a violence of raking winds and cascading water. He runs down the beach, keeping in what he hopes is the general direction for the Chimney. It is a struggle to stay on his feet; the wind continually shoves him back. The world trembles through the tumult of the tempest in complete darkness; not a grain of light can be found in the atmosphere.

It feels as though he's been running for hours, though it can't have been more than twenty minutes, and for a moment, a feeling of hopelessness wells up within him. He stands motionless, crushed by the wind, soaked by the rain, blinded by flying sand, and without a clue as to where he is or whither he should go. The Chimney is no where in sight – nothing is in sight. Sea, sky, and land have melded into one constant, unrelieved mass of black.

Then, from somewhere down the coast, the faint music of the Fire rings out, clear and true.

No shining beacon could have been more effective. Suddenly, all fatigue and frustration have melted from his body, and he feels renewed, filled with hope and strength as he tears down the beach towards that beautiful call, towards the unseen flame.

The stretch of sand in front of the Chimney is peppered with fallen rocks. Through the opening, no light can be glimpsed. The darkness is absolute. With his hand braced on the boulders of the cave to keep footing, rain splashing his face, he calls desperately, "Deidara! Are you there?"

The wait is excruciating; these must be the longest thirty seconds of his life.

Finally, a familiar voice answers, slightly groggy, "Naruto?"

A painful grin breaks across his face. He wants to rush into the Chimney, to celebrate this strange elation, but before he can take more than a few stumbling steps, the world starts to spin, spin, spin out of control. A dark film is coming over his eyes, a darkness blacker than the inky darkness of the tempestuous night. He falls through the opening into the Chimney, his face crushed in dry sand, just as soft footfalls begin to sound in the corridor.

-x- -x- -x-

For now, his immediate wish is granted. He sleeps in the chamber that houses the Fire, and he is always warm.

Cool hands – Deidara's, presumably – pass over his feverish brows at periodic intervals. He is fed various hot liquids whose tastes his dry swollen tongue refuses to distinguish. But most importantly, he is near the Fire, whose song grows stronger as the days drift by, and he is warm. Those are the only things he is capable of signifying right now.

He sleeps, mostly, the tired, intermittent sleep of the sick.

There, too, is a dream.

In it, the sweeping flame-x-shadow on the chamber's ceiling mimics the motions of the hypnotic shapes long fingers are sketching on his skin. There is a sense of movement, he is being lifted, up and off the temporary cot where he sleeps, and into a hopskotching landscape. There is a conspicuous absence of both time and reality; only the touch of the fingers are real, and yet, they are light, pliable somehow, as if the person attached to them too is formed of smoke and shadow.

He is fever-x-drunk, dopily so, and he doesn't mind. Below him, the ground tilts imperceptibly. He is viscerally aware of the ocean, outside, somewhere nearby, but he cannot see it, and for a moment, he is wracked with a yearning for space, for open water, the luxury of freedom.

"Wrong direction. I'm over here."

"You're not supposed to be anywhere," he mumbles, eyes closed. For some reason, he has the feeling of lying down and standing up, simultaneously. There is something apocalyptic hanging in the air, something coming, rapture or death. It is always three o'clock on a bone-x-weary morning that you run into your destiny, here in the land of enchantment.

The man of smoke and shadow chuckles, a low, arrogant sound that unbalances his sense of drowsiness. Suddenly, he realizes that he recognizes that voice, the maybe touch; he realizes this too: the man is supposed to be _dead_.

"You always try to recreate the ones you have lost, don't you?"

"No, it's -x--x- " but the problem with half-x-truths is that half the times, they are completely true. Already he finds himself falling, through air, through an empty sky, but he shakes and the scenario changes, and he doesn't know if he's being fucked or killed, or both. Which is par for the fucking course, because after all, this is…

"I always seem to bring out the worst in you, don't I?"

He is angry now. He is slogging through endless miles of non-x-reality, or maybe is immobile and in-x-place, but everywhere, the smoke-x-and-x-shadow sensation lingers on his skin, and he wants to get out, wants desperately to escape what he's always wanted to be inside. He's tired and dizzy and burning up, and most of all, he's angry, at himself, at the phantom voice. Futile, this rage.

"Over here. I'm over here. Can you do nothing right?"

He launches himself blindly at the taunting creature, hands clawed and reaching for a tuft of hair that he knows will be coarse and rough and dark when he opens his eyes and -x--x-

This is where he wakes up.

He is on the ground, spread-x-eagled half a foot from the kiln, and Deidara is half-x-sprawled across him, having obviously just thrown himself onto him in a full-x-body tackle. He realizes with a flush of shame that he has been sleepwalking, and has nearly pummeled straight into the Fire.

Deidara pulls himself up, and helps Naruto back to his cot without a word. He adjusts the covering, pulling it over Naruto, and turns to leave, only to pause at the door and announce quietly, "Be careful. At this close to the end, the Fire becomes hungry. Ambition is a thing to be wary of."

He rounds the slow bend of sleep again, and dreams of long fingers, not ghostly but graceful and calloused, carding through his hair.

-x- -x- -x-

On the forty-x-eighth day, the fever breaks.

"Look at you, keeping down solid food," Deidara says, cocking his good eyebrow. "Does this mean you're going to live after all?"

They are again sitting side by side at the mouth of the Chimney, finishing up an early breakfast as a coppery haze settles over the water, beating back the yellow morning sun. Although the day is young, the hazy mirage is already up, spreading the vagueness of dreams. The edge of the horizon shimmers and vibrates blindingly. The fog shifts in colonies of cottony, skeletal shapes. It has no voice, but it is an intelligent fog, with memory and laughing faces, it is a fog that understands all the violent ways of death, and who by fire, and who by water.

Deidara wipes at his lips and yawns wearily, leaning back on pillared arms. "About time you got better. You're a sodden deadweight, you know that? Between cleaning up after you and working on the birds, I haven't had a good night's sleep for _days_."

Something of an uncertain air hangs over sea and shore, magnifying certain things and blotting out others. Even the mermaid song is dull and distant, a mere garbling babble from beneath the turbid surface. Only the music of the Fire is clear, steady and deep and triumphant in Naruto's ears. There are pinpricks of light searing the back of his eyelids. His head rings with the ghost of fever pain. Everything seems far away, everything is an illusion of an illusion of an illusion.

The fog lies. Death is a possibility, but not knowledge of death; that alone is unknowable. The sun reveals dead bodies washed up all down the beach: corpses covered with brown seaweed, some without faces or eyes, torn and soggy in the dull morning light. If he looked, would he find someone he knows among the bloated fallen?

"So," Deidara's voice filters in suddenly from beyond the haze, which might as well be countries away. "Don't I get anything for nursing your sorry ass back to health?"

"This," he mumbles, and reaches out with one hand – _both_ – fumbling blindly for a disoriented moment until his fingers catch onto rough fabric. Fisting a handful of shirt material and pulling clasping jerking hard, until the distance is negated and the fog clears and he has Deidara's lips smashed against his, clashing teeth and spit and tongues and _pain_.

Whatever else may be an illusion, _this_ is real.

He pulls back, out of breath, but doesn't let up. There's a moment of stale, frigid air and then the world goes tumbling head over feet in a blind whirlwind and he finds himself on his back in the sand with Deidara leaning over him like the shadow of some bird of prey.

"You kissed me," Deidara says, grinning like a predator with white, white canines. "With _tongue_."

"I did," he returns, somewhat defiantly. His position is vulnerable, thus undesirable, but never mind that for the moment, he'll wait. He's already in too deep to get out. He's just done something that is pretty hard to smooth over and forget about – it won't kill him to keep going a little further. "Sorry I couldn't wait and went at it with the morning breath and everything."

Deidara kisses him.

Cool hand on the back of his neck, another under his jaw, tipping his head back gently by the chin. He loses his breath and can't catch it back with the sprint his pulses are running in his ears, so he opens his mouth and lets Deidara in completely, throws it all up and lets himself be kissed. He gasps and feels the roving tongue move roughly over his, tasting nothing but sea-x-salt and the faintest hint of ash, and now his cock is ridiculously hard and he _wants_.

Deidara is smiling, and he can _feel_ it. It makes him want to laugh, and for a minute or two, he does. There's a feeling like pure delight in his stomach, but he understands by osmosis that it's only the sudden release of tension, a tightly wound coil unwinding in a storm of cracking chrysalises. How absurd this all is, having sex on the _beach_, but he senses danger in that avenue of thought, like if he thinks too much about the absurdity he might never be able to stop laughing. When Deidara leans back to let him breathe, he immediately pulls him close again.

"By the way – _ah_, do that again! – one wise crack about orgasm as artistic sublimation and I _will_ kill you and make it look like an accident. A _messy_ one."

"You mean like 'sex is a bang'?"

"What did I fucking say?"

"Too fucking much. Shut up."

Deidara's tongue is in his mouth again, moving, pushing over his palate, and he remembers with a pleasant little shock that Deidara's skin is so very cool. He's never kissed anyone with cool skin before, not Sakura, definitely not the ghost of smoke and shadows. Something about the knowledge, the novelty of it all, makes him push his hips up and forward. His cock is fully erect, trapped inside his pants, rubbing a wet spot down one side of the crotch. He moans and squirms and Deidara's hand tightens on his shoulder, tongue driving harder into his mouth.

They're both losing their shirts, fast. He puts his hands on Deidara's back, touches the supple small of the back that's all clean-x-cut muscle and sinew under sweaty, smooth skin, and his grip is brutal and tight. Deidara doesn't react, just goes on kissing him, stroking his mouth with his insistent tongue, demanding to be kissed back. Then he pulls back for a moment and runs his hand over Naruto's forehead, the skin damp with perspiration.

"You're toasty again. And flushed all over. D'you think the fever might be coming back?"

"No," Naruto coughs in a half-x-strangled rasp. "Trust me, that has _nothing_ to do with the fever at all."

"You sure? This isn't too much for your emaciated body to handle or anything?"

Naruto laughs lightly, and Deidara kisses him. He's smiling again, they're _both_ smiling, grinning like naked skulls, trembling against each other, bumping teeth clumsily. When they pull away, Naruto has to gasp and pant for air. He's thrusting blindly now, responding to the rhythm of their bodies, the even beats of the Fire Sermon still marching through his mind. Deidara's hips are moving too, and he's leaning deeper into Naruto, fastening his lips to the hollow of Naruto's neck, arms braced on either side. His cock is a pole beneath his pants. Naruto's hands slide downward and come around Deidara's hips, feeling them strong and hard and moving.

The feeling is electric. His heart triphammers. The warmth in the pit of his stomach is cycling up fast into a hot, pulsating ache. This is sex, pure, undiluted fight or flight instinct boiled down to a battle of rough possession that he really, _really_ doesn't want to lose. His cock is out of his pants now, so is Deidara's, he bucks and jerks and Deidara is coming down fast, grabbing his shoulders and pushing him down hard into the cold damp sand. His skull is grounding out white sparks like a million nails are being driven into its surface, and he isn't sure the fever hasn't returned after all, but he doesn't care, _cannot_ care because of the sweet hot guttering in his cock, and nothing matters because he knows he's coming, hands locked around Deidara's shoulders.

He lies there shivering, feeling dull and exploded and motion-x-drunk, until Deidara's teeth unlock from his neck. The burning is tamping down to a faint glow, and his vision starts to blur. His head aches, his shoulders ache, but everything else is warm and dark and quiet. The last thing he remembers is a cool touch on his sweaty brows.

-x- -x- -x-

At some point, much later, he slits open his eyes groggily to see that it's already dusk. An exhaustion of unbearable heaviness is clutching at him, and it takes a long moment before he pieces together that he's just inside the Chimney's opening. Beside him, there's movement. He sits up with immense difficulty, his abdomen screaming and barely taking his weight. In the dark, he puts out a hand, groping blindly, and almost recoils sharply when it makes contact with cool skin. A bare, supple back, bent in labor. Someone is working in the dark.

"Deidara?"

"_Shh_." The light is too dim to make out anything beyond vague shapes, but he can tell from the familiar shifting shadows that Deidara is briskly, furiously molding clay.

"What…"

"Sleep."

He tries to fight it – he does. But, as though with a mind of its own, the wave of heaviness dips suddenly and crashes over his head , and he's sinking into a hot, fevered sleep, down and out before he can utter another word. Cool skin, a bare, supple back to press his hot forehead to, something to want, if not understand. The Fire sings, the waves cry, in the end is the beginning.

-x- -x- -x-

Day forty-x-nine.

The sky and sea are black and red, red and black, the sea is black the sky is red. The sky is red, and strange shafts of light bounce out of secret keyholes, illuminating grotesque shapes of rocks, an eclipse of the sun. In the chamber of the kiln, the Fire has grown to swallow the entire room, emitting an unbearable heat that finally transcends the barrier and moves through the Chimney in waves. Its song is louder and fiercer than ever, a terrible battle cry, and from it the mermaids hide their song, quaking at the bottom of the ocean for dear life. The great ocean itself seems to quail before the unveiled glory of the Fire Sermon.

The corridors are alive with a bustling commotion like a thousand swarms of angry locusts, for crows of clay (earth and life, life and earth) are shooting forth from every crack, every corner, and kamikaze-x-ing into the Fire, from which they emerge, bursting from the no longer excessive chute, all sleek and perfected, circling the sky overhead. A thousand birds, taking flight, and soon the red sky is black with them.

There is no room in the Chimney to stand. Naruto sits on the sand outside, mesmerized by the sight unfolding before him. Behind him, Deidara is standing upright, facing the roiling sea with his back to the Chimney, as though unconcerned with the fruition of all his labors. His expression is as calm and blank as the sea is not.

"Come, let's go," he says suddenly, and as Naruto turns to look at him in surprise, Deidara unclasps the Akatsuki cloak he's still wearing and casts it off. The great cape-x-like garment falls to the ground, where immediately it begins to stretch and spread, turning the white sand to a kaleidoscope of black and red, red and black.

Stepping over the cloak, Deidara strides determinedly towards the sea, disrobing as he goes. By the time his last piece of clothing has been discarded, he is standing at the edge of the water, naked as the day he was born. The glow of the sky bathes him in silent, pale light.

"Are you coming?" he asks impatiently.

Is he coming? Kami, he could come five times a day.

Deidara turns and marches willfully into the ocean as Naruto jumps to his feet. His hands are flying at his own clothing. It is early December, but the air is hot, charged with invisible energy, the sweeping of the flying sand giving the cove the illusion of a desert, a mirage in reverse. Even with his clothes shed, his skin begins to bead with sweat. Stumbling over his feet in haste, he rushes across the sandy beach (mottled with black and red, red and black) and jumps into the sea.

The freezing water cuts into his skin like salt in a fresh wound. He shivers, and struggles hard against the strong current, quickening his strides, fearing lest his muscles should seize. He wades deeper and deeper into the black, black water, beckoned by the shock of light hair in the distance where Deidara is floating serenely, swallowed in the sea.

"There is no fear of being pulled under today," Deidara shouts delightedly. "None of those broads will dare show their faces above the surface."

Then he bursts out laughing. It is a strange laughter, for no funny thing is apparent, but it is infectious and pleasant: it invites you to forget your sorrow and immerse in something higher, something vague but achingly, infinitely beautiful – neither joy nor peace but something more – so that when Naruto's breaststrokes take him astride of Deidara, he too begins laughing.

There they float, side by side, swallowed in the sea and laughing to their hearts' content.

When Deidara pulls Naruto in for a kiss, his mouth tastes of the sea: salty, dark, and deceitful above all things.

Then he pulls away and begins wading to shore. After a moment, Naruto follows. He finds his clothes in a sandy bundle, and struggles to pull them on. Deidara keeps on walking, now in the direction of the Chimney. He is beautiful like that, pale and slick and gleaming, a splash of ocher across a canvas painted over in black and red. As he reaches the discarded cloak (which has now spread to enormous size), he bends to pick it up, and wraps it around himself.

"Are you coming?" he asks again.

Now clothed, Naruto quickens his steps to catch up with him. At the mouth of the Chimney, he freezes, mouth slackened.

The Fire has spread through all the corridors and filled the entire cave. Its encroaching tongues of flame are visible now through the Chimney's opening. All one thousand crows, soot black from beak to foot, circle the sky overhead with cries of triumph, echoing the shrilling Song of the Fire, which has metamorphosized into a veritable victory march. The beating of their tiny wings call up a vortex of wind, maelstrom gusts blowing materialized ashes against their faces.

At the entrance, Deidara stands cloaked in his mantle of black and red, which billows around him like ragged wings. The king of crows, beckoning.

"Are you coming?"

"Yes."

"Then take my hands. And don't look back."

The sky and sea are black and red, red and black, the sky is red the sea is black. As Naruto takes a few shaky steps forward, the Fire stretches and rises and roars around Deidara's body, until he is but a mere pinprick in a forest of flame. It flicks harmlessly at his skin; the wind is swirling his hair around his face, slapping white-x-and-x-red streaks on his cheeks. He leans back, and instead of falling he rises, arms outstretched. This, then, is the moment of truth, when all Naruto's life and everything he has learned and experience before taper to a throbbing point, and he realizes that he must take it, now, before the Fire goes out and the chance is lost forever.

"Take my hands."

Naruto reaches out, his sweaty little fingers quivering, there is a great flash of lightning and the wind roars deafeningly, but no, something is holding him back. Fear. He is afraid of what comes next. He is afraid of the deep blue of nonbeing. Equilibrium is impermanent. One must move forward, toward more or toward less. If he takes the proffered hands, if he steps into the Fire, will he vanish, cease to exist, be reduced to nothing (what is less than nothing?) or will it be something else entirely different? Death or rapture? Pure emptiness or pure possibility?

The whirlwind picks up more speed, the world flying by so fast the colors are a blur. There is still the Fire ahead, and earth and life, and life and earth. Deidara's face is up, towards the circle of whirling birds, and he sees it, whatever it is. He is rising towards his destiny, drifting further and further out of reach, his arms still outstretched. Naruto looks too, but he sees nothing at all, and now added to fear there is the taint of doubt.

He looks back.

There is a deafening roar, like the Earth ripping asunder. An invisible force of tremendous strength knocks him backward, and even as he's tumbling through space, he's hanging in the air, he knows. He knows it's over, it's too late, and he'll never get a second chance again.

He hits the ground with a soft thud, pushes to his feet and runs, runs in the opposite direction, as fast as he can, the landscape a blur, sand and sea streaking past. The Fire Sermon is hot on his heels, pursuing him with mocking cries that shake him with every step he takes. The birds caw louder. He never looks back, and so does not see the Fire curling back and shooting up in a tall column of flame, ripping the sky open, and Deidara, rising, the same manic gleam in his eye.

-x- -x- -x-

The ghostly flutter of tartan curtains brings to mind a measure of tranquility. Daylight filters in through them, gauzy and paled. He wakes to a snowscape of linens, a bed in hotel room from once upon a very long time ago.

"Oh thank god you've finally come to," gushes his landlady, mopping his brows with a damp cloth. "You had us all so worried. But the doctor said you will be alright now."

She gets up to draw the curtains and he winces against the harsh flood of light. There is a deep soreness in his limbs that speaks of long, uninterrupted sleep, and some steep labor before that. For a second, he flounders helplessly in the no man's land of the memoryless, until the proper recollection comes rushing back and he startles, springing up in bed.

"What day is it?" he asks, fighting rising panic. "Please, tell me, quickly!"

His landlady looks taken aback by his urgency. "Why, it's the fourteenth. It's been three days since they found you on the eastern beach. You were…"

"Three days?" he exclaims in disbelief.

"Yes," says the old woman, plainly annoyed at being interrupted. "You were unconscious, and soaked to the skin, I might add. We all assumed you had gone swimming in the sea and caught a bad cold. Terribly dangerous, swimming in this weather, but you hotheaded young men are always doing foolhardy things…"

"Did anyone see anything unusual down on the beach?" he pleads desperately. "I mean, was there strange light, or an explosion, maybe…"

"I can't say anyone did," says the woman, perplexed. "To be sure, it was a gloomy, overcast day. Ash-x-days, we call it down here, when the sun looks as if it's been covered by black ash. We all expected a great big storm was coming, but the next day the sky was clear as you please, not a scrap of… but where are you going? You need to rest!"

The sound of her voice follows him out the door.

He's flying down the cobblestone streets, the empty boardwalk leading eastward down to the sea, jumping over rocks and the clusters of fernlike reeds. Gusts of slicing wind cut into his skin through the material of his flimsy nightshirt. He pays them no mind.

The gaunt shadow of the Chimney soars up before him, that miracle of nature's architectural feats. From beyond the small opening, its darkness seems as dense and impenetrable as the first time he laid his eyes on it. Yet other major changes have taken place in his absence. Serious rockslides have occurred, covering the beach with large boulders. The sea has overrun the cove, and flooded the beach up to the very foot of the granite structure. At the cave entrance, the ground has been deeply rutted by the relentless assault of the waves. Strewed across the sand are strands of dried kelp and seaweed, resembling nothing so much as the carcasses of great beasts.

A grim foreboding runs through Naruto's mind. Tries as he might, he cannot pick out the silent summons from the wind. Drawing a steeling breath, he plunges into that womblike shadow.

A moment later, he emerges, and, standing motionless at the entrance, stares unseeing out into the great sea, mirroring drab skies. That sinister water has flooded the corridors, leaving behind only devastation, naught but ruin and destruction. Here and there, the pathways are obstructed by large boulders from the wrecked walls. And the Fire…

The Fire has been extinguished – its ashes mingle now with algae and mud – or maybe it has never been at all. Not a trace remains of the strange, beautiful, terrifying things to which the shamed walls bore silent witness. The sea has won the final battle in its ruthless war against the powers of those who have tarried here.

With slow, weighed steps, Naruto makes his way down to the sandy edge. The sun is coming up high; the surface of the water is a green mirror, glimmering. As he stands with his hands in his pockets covering the waterfront with the weight of many regrets, the eternal song of generations of dead mothers and sisters and daughters rises to a triumphant finish, now unrivaled, before drifting to a whisper. It sings of the men whose ambitions have lingered here a while and disappeared. None will live to remember them. Only sky and sea matter.

The endlessly repeated crashing of green waves mimic the mournful beats of his heavy heart.

-x-

_And would it have been worth it, after all?_


End file.
